Prep Football: Aquin collects 44-26 win over Christian Life

Saturday

Nov 2, 2013 at 6:26 PMNov 2, 2013 at 6:26 PM

By Adam KradleRockford Register Star

ROCKFORD — Dominant starts to the game and the second half made a big difference for Aquin on Saturday.

The Bulldogs (7-3) scored 30 of their points in the first and third quarters, and their defense held the Eagles (8-2) without a point for those 24 minutes of play in a 44-26 Aquin victory in the first round of the Class 1A football playoffs.

Aquin quarterback Aiden Chang fired five touchdown passes and threw for 353 yards to lead a Bulldogs offense that was able to overwhelm the defense of the No. 2-seeded Christian Life.

“That’s just having ‘AC’ in back understanding, being able to see what the defense is giving you,” Aquin coach Todd Kramer said. “I thought the line did a good job giving him time to throw it and guys made key catches when they needed to.”

Eleven of those catches were made by Anthony Townsend, who had 185 yards receiving and caught a pair of Chang’s touchdown passes. The first came on Aquin’s fourth offensive play of the game, which gave the Bulldogs the lead less than four minutes in. A 30-yard pass from Chang to Dominic DeMichele on Aquin’s fifth offensive play and a second successful two-point conversion gave Aquin a 16-0 lead with 6:55 still left in the first quarter.

“That was pretty big coming out early because we usually start real slow,” Townsend said. “It was good to get ahead of them.”

The Eagles gave Aquin terrific starting position on its first two drives because of a pair of botched snaps on punt attempts. The Bulldogs started on the Christian Life 35-yard line on its first possession and the Eagles’ 30 on their second.

“Obviously they have a good offense and to give them a short field two times in a row obviously it made it a lot easier for them than it could’ve been,” Christian Life coach Tony Ambrogio said. “Mistakes happen and we tried to press on from that. We cut it to 10 points at the half and just couldn’t turn the corner.”

The Aquin defense forced the Eagles to turn the ball over on downs on each of their three possessions in the third quarter, and that gave the Bulldogs offense a chance to build on their lead.

“We came out in that third quarter and really had some intensity and just stepped up the way we needed to, especially with an explosive team like that that can score at any time,” Kramer said.

With the Aquin defense keeping Christian Life off the scoreboard, the offense scored 20 straight points to open up a 30-point lead early in the final quarter. The Eagles managed to counter with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns, but that was all they would get against the second-round bound Bulldogs.

“It feels great,” Aquin junior Dean Sopcic said. “We knew that they’re a are a fantastic team so we treated them with respect. We just came out prepared.”

Aquin will face either Forreston or Lena-Winslow in the second round next week.

“You always say to want to play your best ball in the playoffs and I think starting in the second half against River Ridge (last week), the guys started catching on and hopefully we continue because we’re going to have our hands full and then some, but it’s fun to have that opportunity,” Kramer said.